Uphill All the Way

It's December, which means another 11 months have slipped by. There is progress to report, but...

The large gazebo that I put up (in January) to cover the boat kept the sun off, but got demolished by the storms of winter. The boat sat for several months without cover and collected soggy leaves, bird droppings and families of spiders and insects.

This week, we had the tree fellers in (but, of course, there were only two of them). Since the boat was positioned in the drop zone for the large branches they were going to trim, we had to move it and the hardback up onto the lawn (that's what we call the collection of moss, dandelions and other weeds that we carefully nurture).

On turning the boat over, I was dismayed to see that every surface of the interior was covered by a nasty black mould. I envisaged having, at best, to sand back the 8 or 9 layers of varnish and redoing it all.

I was relieved to find that hot water and dilute sugar soap brought it all back to pristine condition. The outer hull was actually better to start with, since it had been regularly washed by the rain, but that, too, came up luverly. I'll still have to lightly sand before adding a couple of fresh layers of varnish.

Before

After

In the meantime, I bit the bullet and tackled the oars. My lack of knowledge and confidence around the fitting of the sleeves and constructing the buttons has been the real roadblock to progress. Spurred on by great advice and insight from my chum Boysie, who has just moved in next door to the Dittons Skiff Club, I took advantage of a few dry, sunny days to sand the oars and to apply a couple of fresh coats of varnish. They look great:

Next came fitting the sleeves: I forgot to take photos of each step, but the process involved wrapping a rectangle of leather, which had been thoroughly soaked in warm water to soften it, around the shaft of the oar. I nailed one edge, using copper tacks*, then carefully sliced through the overlapping leather to ensure a perfect fit. It sounds easy, but there was a lot of clamping, grunting and pulling to get them tight and matched. As the leather dries out, it should shrink to give it the final snug fit.

*I really wanted to use brass tacks, but the right sort don't seem to be readily available.

 In the next few days, I shall make the buttons, which are supposed to look something like this:

In the meantime, the boat sits in its new home: